MacLaren Cottages

Today I visited the village of Fortingall, near Aberfeldy.

In 1880 Sir Donald Currie, self made shipping magnate, MP for Perthshire engaged an up and coming young architect to develop the village of Fortingall. James M MacLaren's buildings in Fortingall include Balnald Farm, Glenlyon Farmhouse and steadings, and Kirkton Cottages with the iconic tapering red sandstone chimney rising above crow stepped gables, reed thatch and Cornish inspired eyebrow dormers. He had done preliminary work on Fortingall Hotel and Glenlyon House before his untimely death at the age of 37 in 1890.

It is believed the young architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh who sketched his work in Stirling, adopted MacLaren's "materials, massing and design-vocabulary".